A Bounty at Bellmans

Coinciding with their sale of Old Master, British and European paintings, this spring Bellmans sold a collection of works by both Herbert Dicksee (1862-1942) and Arthur Wardle (1860-1949).

The Dicksees had been consigned by the estate of the late Pamela Service, Dicksee’s granddaughter and Wardle’s by his great-grandson in direct male line. All the dog lots sold, with many of the Dicksees going above their top estimates. Buyers were mainly collectors from the U.K. and overseas, with some lots going to the U.K. trade.

On his death Wardle must have left a great body of work, for Bellmans described the collection offered as “The Studio Sale,” and indeed the lots offered were what one would usually expect to have been left in a studio. In 1994, Sotheby’s in London offered a “white glove” sale of works from the “Studio of Arthur Wardle,” so it came as a surprise some 30 years later for there to be another “Studio Sale,” and I gather there are more still to come.

To collectors of dog prints, Herbert Dicksee is held in the highest regard. His soft style, sympathetic approach and hints of solid, almost classical backgrounds are uniquely his. Many of his pictures have a sad, somewhat melancholy quality, which was not the mood of Dicksee himself, who was a jolly man. All Herbert’s dog lots offered in the sale were etchings except for one, a pencil, colored chalks and gouache of a sitting Bull Terrier that sold for £1,700 against a top estimate of £500. The dog was William, who belonged to Herbert’s granddaughter Pamela. The price was the fourth highest at auction for a work on paper by Herbert, according to Artprice.com

He was from an artistic family, and works by both his father, John Robert, and cousin Sir Frank, president of the Royal Academy from 1889 to 1901, were in the collection at Bellmans: John Robert with a study of a teasel and Frank with landscapes. Those by Herbert were mostly dogs, with a few wild animals and rural scenes.

Herbert studied art at the Slade School, where he won medals for painting and drawing from life and also a Slade Scholarship, and later became drawing master at the City of London School. His output was prolific: He exhibited some 300 pictures at most of the major galleries, including the Royal Academy, where he exhibited his first dog picture, dingoes attacking sheep.

All his animals were drawn from life, and he became known just as well for his pictures of big cats that he had studied in London Zoo as he was for his dogs. He was a familiar sight in parts of London with his Bloodhound, who, with head down on a scent, would tow Dicksee to any destination where he, the Bloodhound, wished to go!

Most of the dogs Dicksee painted and drew were pets of various members of his family, all of whom were great dog lovers. The French Bulldog “Shaver” was the pet of Dicksee’s daughter, Dorothy Service, and the etching of “Shaver” asleep found a new home for £550 (£200-400). A Deerhound features in many of Dicksee’s etchings, and “On the Moors,” a Deerhound standing on a rocky outcrop, is possibly the one Deerhound collectors covet the most. The copy at Bellmans exceeded its top estimate of £400, selling for £600.

“My Lady Sleeps,” showing a young girl asleep with a Mastiff very much at rest but nevertheless watchful, is the most loved of all Dicksee’s dog etchings; therefore it was no surprise that the Bellmans copy led the etchings in the sale at £850 (£300-500).

Arthur Wardle is one of Britain’s best-known canine artists. His work regularly appears at auction, and in many cases is affordable. He had little, if any formal artistic training, but it is likely he received guidance from some of his numerous artist neighbors. Like Dicksee, he studied the animals in London Zoo. He was equally proficient in a variety of media, and the 47 lots offered by Bellmans showed the complete oeuvre of his work – maquettes, pastels, oils and gouache, and as well as dogs there were human figures, wild animals and rural scenes.

A study of cattle on the banks of the River Thames was accepted as a Royal Academy exhibit in 1880, when Wardle was only 16 years of age, the first of some 113 works exhibited at the R.A. in his lifetime. His paintings were featured in the Great British Empire Exhibition at Wembley, followed by a one-man show at the Fine Art Society in 1931. His output was extensive, and a great body of his work was reproduced on postcards, cigarette cards, ceramics and in many books.

Wardle at his best shows an instinctive understanding of his subject; his dogs are anatomically correct and gleam with condition, and his brushwork shows muscular tone and depth of coat. His “bread and butter” pictures of dogs are rather flat, with expressions devoid of character. He painted most breeds throughout a long career.

In common with other dog-portrait artists of the period, much of his commission work shows dogs the owners wished to see rather than the reality. The most famous of his dog portraits, of which the American Kennel Club and the Royal Kennel Club have copies, is “The Totteridge XI,” Smooth Fox Terriers owned by Francis Redmond. Many years after the completion of the picture, Wardle remarked: “Mr. Redmond stood over me and made me ‘perfect’ all his dogs – shorten their backs, lengthen their necks and muzzles, make their ears and feet smaller than they really were – and so on. None of them were half as good as in their picture.”

As one would expect from a studio sale, there were no major commission pieces. Not surprisingly, it was a study one associates with Wardle that led the dog pictures – two Setters in a moorland landscape with a rolling sky beyond. It sold just above estimate for £1,300. Another to achieve a good result – £550 (£200-400) – was an appealing head study of a Dandie Dinmont Terrier.

The only “named” picture, selling within estimate for £750, was a study of two Borzois heads, both owned by Mrs. E.L. Gingold: Golden Anitna and Amber of Bransgore. Mrs. Gingold built up a large kennel in Hampshire of joint show and coursing hounds, but when war started she was forced to close the kennels down.

Perhaps because of the breed’s lack of commercial appeal, the hounds not being named and obvious fading, the pastel of two working Basset Hounds sold below estimate for £380. Nevertheless, an interesting picture of a breed one rarely sees in art.